For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security lockup.
Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack.
Also not revealed: how they were gotten to "cooperate":
Many operations have been classified since the detention center opened in January 2002 in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. More than four years passed before the military released even the names of detainees held on this 45-square-mile base in southeast Cuba — and it did so only after the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request.
Camp 7, where 15 “high-value detainees” are held, is so secret that its very existence was not publicly known until it was mentioned in December by attorneys for Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident who allegedly plotted to bomb gas stations in the United States. Previously, many observers believed the 15 were being held in Camps 5 or 6, which are maximum-security facilities.
“Under the gag order ... we are prohibited from saying anything more about their camp,” lawyer Gitanjali Gutierrez, who met with Khan in October, said Tuesday. Most of the lawyers' notes and memos have been stamped “top secret” by the government.
Buzby told the AP he is sharply limiting to a “very few” the number of people who know Camp 7’s whereabouts.
He described it as a maximum security facility that was already built when President Bush announced in September 2006 that 14 high-value terrorism suspects had been transferred from CIA secret detention facilities to Guantanamo. An additional detainee, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, arrived last April.
Meanwhile, Army Col. Mark Vargo, responsible for all other camps at Gitmo, has obviously drank too much of Bush’s Kool-Aid. He’s actually worried about an al-Qaeda attack on Gitmo. Like, where are they going to get the naval craft? And, Fidel’s not dumb enough to let them fly into Havana, where they’d stick out like sore thumbs anyway.
And, al-Qaeda is smarter than that. They know that if there are 15 talkers, they've already been wrung dry on info; attacking the base to kill them would do no good.
Other questions: Were they tortured? If so, how reliable, if at all, is their info? If not, is part of the reason Camp 7 is hidden is to keep egg off BushCo’s collective face, namely, the egg of admitting you can get solid evidence without torture?
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